​BILL ANNOUNCES:Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Tuesday, January 10, 2017. Bill and Juana here and it looks like it was warmer that day, Juana.

JUANA: It was. After three days of very cold weather, it was warmer. We had a full crew and it was a very sad day. We didn’t know it was going to happen that day. I am talking about Pokey and we’ll get to that.

It was a regular work day for our crew and it wasn’t as cold. Maci was the walker in Pat Arnold Park. There’s Maci with Erika and you can see the little face of Erika’s kennelmate Junior on the side.

​There’s a beautiful picture of Erika.

Caragan was cleaning a water bucket while she was working in kennels.

George Jr. was working in kennels.

​Jacob was the walker in the Shirley Olsen Beemer Park.He was hugging and carrying Shuby.

She’s a single doggie. She loves people and she’s very sweet. She just doesn’t like other dogs. She was rescued with her son puppy Tarzan, but she was trying to teach him to be bad and aggressive. We separated them and he’s completely different. Tarzan is the sweetest dog. He loves everything and everybody. Shuby has some Pit in her and she loves people, but she just doesn’t like other dogs.

Yoshi is Mario and Luigi’s brother. They are completely different from Yoshi. He is so very skittish. He doesn’t bite and he lets us touch him and walk him, but he’s always cautious and afraid. He’s afraid that he will get hurt. We got him as a pup and he wasn’t abused. He has always been timid.

​It was a tough day. We lost our Pokey-mon. He was one of Ms. Pat’s original dogs. I met him in 2001, when he was about a year old. He was about 18 years old and he made it through another year. He had a good life here at Straydog and he was never adopted. He was a tough guy in his early years. Back then I was intimidated by him, because he was kind of scary. His eyes were so deep and black. He was a Chow mix. We rescued him from a neighbor, who shot at him and missed him. His wife called Ms. Pat and asked her to come and get the dog, before her husband killed him. He was after their chickens. Randy and Ms. Pat went to get him and he was hiding at another neighbor’s garage down the road. They brought him here and he’s been a resident of Straydog since then. He had a lot of kennelmates over the years and I call most of them his girlfriends, because he was so cute with them. Emily was his first kennelmate back in central. She tore her ACL and she had to come inside for a long time and she got adopted. Sydney was his kennelmate for a long time and then she got adopted. She has since passed away. Then Goldie was his kennelmate and she was adopted and she is still alive. Then Gracie and Tipper. Tipper wasn’t his kennelmate for very long. Gracie was adopted and subsequently passed away. Bernie was his last kennelmate. He was adopted and he’s still alive. After Bernie, Pokey was so old. After all of these years, I decided he needed to be able to walk around and he loved Jetta. I put him in with the gang and he became part of the H1 Gang. He would run to the park with them and park himself and Jetta would dance around him. I have such fond memories of Pokey and he turned into such a good doggie. He had been on pain medicine for a long time and we were able to manage his pain level. He was able to walk and we took him to Morton Clinic several times. They said he was just suffering with old age and arthritis in his back. They told us to try and keep him comfortable, as long as he was able to walk and eat. He was enjoying life and trying to run after Jetta. He was so cute. After a while, he wasn’t eating very well and he was slowing down. We started cooking for him and giving him different things to eat. We raised his food table, so he wouldn’t have to get too low to the floor. We showed you pictures of that several days ago. Then we started hand feeding him. He was eating, but not very much. We all knew that it was coming. On this day, he was lying there and he wouldn’t get up and his back legs were very stiff. We knew that he was in pain. We couldn’t give him any more pain medicine and he wasn’t going to get better. We knew that it was time. Lacie was with me that day and we took him to Morton Clinic. You can see the gang in H1. They all seemed to know. Everybody was so sad. This is Bug and Tiffany.

George brought Tiffany with him that day. You can see their sad little faces. Oreo knew that something was not right.

Pokey was lying on his bed and he couldn’t even get up. He couldn’t do anything. It wasn’t right to keep him with us any longer. He was ready and Dr. James helped us. I didn’t take any pictures of this. Emma, my six-year-old granddaughter was with us. She had a doctor’s appointment that morning and I drove Lacie and Emma to that appointment. We came back to Straydog to take care of Pokey. That afternoon, Lacie went to get the doctor and she left Emma and me with Pokey in the exam room at Morton Clinic. Emma was trying to cheer Pokey up and he was looking at her. She kept getting close to him and asking me, “What is wrong with Pokey, Nana?” I told her that he was going to heaven and that he was going to be better. Lacie took Emma back to the office, when we let Pokey go and he was so peaceful and ready to go. It was very sad and emotional, but he’s in heaven now.​